Post on Chapter 8 through Chapter 12

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​​What follows is a bulleted list of things that I found interesting or noteworthy from chapters 8 through 12:
  • Tom a Bedlam - The epigram to the second part of the novel. The link is an analysis of the poem.
  • Geoffrey Fourmyle of Ceres
    • "a wealthy young buffoon" (pg 124)
    • Fourmyle is shot out of a "circus cannon" (pg 125)
    • The novel describes his act by saying that "the vaudeville never ceased" (pg 126)
    • "Foyle at once awoke from his detached intensity and became the outlandish Fourmyle of Ceres. He clowned and cavorted..." (pg 131)
    • "Led by their chief buffoon" (pg 132)
    • "The buffoon. The bourgeois gentilhomme. Vulgarity. Imbecility. Obscenity." (pg 133)
    • "From New Year's to All Fools Day" (pg 138)
    • "All this Four Mile Circus is camouflage. Nobody ever suspcets a clown" (pg. 138)
    • Ceres - Greek goddess of plants (specifcally grains) and motherly love

  • "Le roi est mort, les---" the opening lines of the poem that Fourmyle is writing translate to "the king died, them" (pg 127)
  • Perpetual Motion - something that gives off more energy than it uses
  • Foyle is Fourmyle - What a mask!
  • Mirrors come up a good bit in this section as well. Mirrors are important in psychology. Jacques Lacan "discovered" the mirror stage of human development. It is the period in a young child's life where s/he is permanently caught and captivated by his/her own image. The mirror stage shows the distinction between how we believe that we should be and how we actually really are. You might consider this the mask that we wear so well that we ourselves even believe it.
    • Foyle "stood before a mirror, took a deep breath and held it" (pg 128)
  • A fakir teaches Gully how to control his face. "Control. Pulse, breath, bowels, brains" (pg 128)
  • Foyle's new body "More machine than man" (pg128). His body has been rewired to become the ultimate killing machine
    • Does this make him more like Vorga?
  • "There were a dozen men and three women around the fire, rough, dangerous, jabbering in the Cockney rhyming slang of the jackals" (pg 129)
    • Cockney - the working class people of England
    • Is this a dig against the working class who would probably make up most of society?
    • Should we assume that everytime the Jackals and Jack-Jaunters come up that this is a reference to working class people?
  • Gully cannot get the records for where Robin Wednesbury by himself so he gets a bunch of beautiful women to help him. The books says, "Two hours later, the record clerk, dazed by flesh and the devil" (pg 132). The women must be the "flesh," what does that make Gully?
  • Robin Wednesbury is at "Mercy Hospital" (pg 132). Mercy huh? Seems biblical again.
  • Foyle dresses up as Fourmyle who dresses up at Santa Claus. A mask of a mask! (pg 132)
    • Any religious stuff going on w/ St. Nick?
  • Heat Lightning (pg 133)
    • St. Elmo's fire, heat lightning...all weird electrical occurreneces
  • "'Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.' Adeste Fidelis...Feu de joi: or feu d'enfer?" (pg 133)
  • The faces of men, oh God! The features of masculinity. Everyman in a rut. Will God never save us from brute desire?" (pg 133)
  • "Another Whore of Babylon in the Circus" (pg 134). Robin Wednesbury says when Gully offers her a position with him.
    • a christian biblical symbol of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelations
    • she is associated with the antichrist
  • Ventriloquist...dummy - another form of masking? (pg 135)
  • "The problem today is to have any taste at all" (pg 140)
    • comment on society?
  • Everyone dresses like they would have when their clans first came into existence
  • Spending money
    • "It's so difficult to spend money these days. We have to find the silliest excuses. If only someone would invent new extravagances" (pg 142).
    • "But he wastes his time on perpetual motion" (pg 142).
    • "It's a shocking waste of money. The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it. Where's the joy in perpetual motion? Is there any extravagance in entropy? Millions for nonsense but not one cent for entropy. My slogan" (pg 142)
  • Perpetual motion and entropy
    • These two concepts are addressed in this section. Both deal with a system's ability to maintain function without the addition of energy. Perpetual motion is the goal. Getting something to create as much energy as it uses. Entropy is the reality of the situation that everything eventually breaks down or ends without the addition of more energy.
  • "I promise an extravagant reward to the first one who discovers the deception of my costume" (pg 143)
  • Searching for Forrest
    • Cellar Christians
      • "The twenty-fifth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion" (pg 145)
      • "You say 'Jesus' and "Jesus Christ.' Do you know what that is...it's religion. You don't know it, but there are two thousand years of meaning behind words like that" (pg 145).
    • Analogue - the name of the drug used by Forrest
      • Analogue is a literary term meant to describe works that resemble one another in characters, motifs, scenes, events, phrases, etc.
      • Forrest, because of the analogue, takes on the characteristics of a snake.
    • Sinbad and the Old Man in the Sea (pg 147) -
    • Foyle dunks Forrest's head in the ocean - a type of baptism? (pg 148)
    • Foyle sees himself burning on the beach in front of him (pg 149) and yells "Christ!"
    • Robin Wednesbury says that it is Gully burning in Hell
  • Catching Sergei Orel
    • Gully auctions of a woman who is an android who is a woman (pg 152)
    • Sympathetic Blocks (pg 154) - Gully is not a killer?
  • Catching Angelo Poggi
    • Pg. 156-157
      • Spanish Stairs
      • Villa Borghese
      • Piazza di Spagna
      • "death chamber in Keat's house"
      • Cesare & Lucrezia Borgia
    • Y'ang Yeovil is pretending to be Angelo Poggi
    • Why are picures of "Cellar Christians, kneeling, praying, singing psalms, kissing cross...very naughty. very smutty"? (pg 158)
    • When Poggi (really Yeovil) first meets Gully he asks him, "How can I serve your worship?" (pg 158)
    • "The Burning Man" is what the crowd calls Gully's burning self which appears again at the Spanish stairs
  • "'I still can't believe my eyes.' 'Oh, you can believe what you didn't see, all right.'" (pg 161)
  • Foyle is of blood relation to Presteign? (pg 165)
  • The Presteign family creed: without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypcrisy. (pg 165)
  • Foyle buys St. Patrick's Cathedral (pg 166)
  • Olivia Prestign is a "snow maiden, an Ice Princess" (pg 166)
  • Jiz McQueen wears an emerald evening gown...MERMAID (pg 168)
    • "He started off capturing me; I ended capturing him" (pg 170)
  • Olivia and Foyle
    • a Knight's tale?
    • Foyle and Olivia and Robin...new love triangle?
  • Jiz and Saul's bedroom are mirror opposites.
    • Mirrors have come up enough in this seciton of the book and in the book as a whole to warrent some conversation.
  • "Keep the faith with me (saul) the same way, Jiz." In regard to her faith in Gully.
  • There is no defense against betrayal, and we betray ourselves. Gully as a Judas characer too!
  • Kempsey becomes a heartless man.. Cool
  • Skoptsy? can't be hurt?
  • Vorga was skuttling refugees after stripping them of everything they had of value. If Gully were picked up by Vorga he would be dead by now!
  • Gully feels bad about skuttling the dead body? Is he getting a conscience?